


California condors don’t yell “fuck!!”

by Rainey657



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 13:09:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14770229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainey657/pseuds/Rainey657
Summary: Lucifer works on his aviation skills and discovers the skies are more crowded than he expected.





	California condors don’t yell “fuck!!”

Deepest gratitude to the creators of Lucifer. I only borrow the characters; I don’t originate them.

 

Beatrice wished to go flying.

Beatrice wasn’t the least bit intimidated by either Lucifer Morningstar’s origins or his “big, white gorgeous!!!” wings, as the child so accurately described them. Beatrice could tell at first glance they were meant for flight, for joyous glides and breath-taking spirals into the wild blue.

Unlike her mother, Beatrice was fearless.

Which was a ridiculous notion, as Chloe Decker was a homicide detective, and Lucifer had seen her stand down armed perpetrators and take on a homicidal psychopath (Cain, also known as Marcus Pierce) who was determined to murder both the Devil and the Devil’s detective. She outdrew the monster in one smooth move ripped right out of a spaghetti Western! If Lucifer hadn’t been horrified by Cain’s bullets striking her in the chest (he had no idea she’d thought to don a bullet-proof vest before they left the station) he would have been bursting with pride at her skill, marksmanship and bravery.

Instead of screaming in horror as she collapsed, dying, in his arms.

Of course, she _wasn’t_ dying, but he couldn’t have know that at the time. She was merely knocked unconscious by the force of the bullets; high-velocity lead at 20 feet has a substantial impact, and the vest could only dissipate so much kinetic energy.

By the time Chloe regained her awareness and was on her feet, Lucifer had…

Well, enough about that. The consequences were significant, leading to his Detective seeing his Devil Face and instead of running away shrieking in terror, she froze and then ran to him, deeply concerned for his well-being! He was Lucifer Morningstar, _the Devil_ , and Detective Chloe Decker was less afraid of him than worried for him!

It was almost sufficient to make him believe in one of Dad’s miracles.

But not quite. The _real_ miracle was that Chloe Decker, Protective Mother of one Beatrice Decker-Espinosa, age 11-going-on-25, didn’t strangle her civilian consultant-slash-partner upon learning that her daughter had known about his divinity “for _years_ , Mom.”

“He **_told_ ** you??” Chloe’s Momvoice went into upper ranges barely audible to small animals and misbehaving children.

No, Lucifer hadn’t breathed a word to her daughter. Her daughter had a school-issued i-Pad that supposedly securely blocked students’ general access to the Internet, and certainly made it impossible to open the more… controversial sites.

Which the entire fifth grade class took as a mortal challenge.

Beatrice was one of the first to find a way around the administration-placed blocks, and promptly watched all seven seasons of Game of Thrones (Arya Stark was her hero!), followed by extensive research on her mother’s fascinating partner.

Wings. Archangel. Free will. Mean father. Thrown out of Heaven. Badly burned. Sent to Hell. This sounded like a job for Arya!

She knew Lucifer wasn’t evil. He was easy to push around, he made her mom happy (even though she complained endlessly about his “childishness”), he let her drive his ‘Vette (okay, only in the tech center parking lot on weekends, but that was better than what her mom said when Trixie asked to drive _her_ pooty little car), and she… liked him. She liked the Devil!

Well, what did those old prophets know about it, anyway?

Beatrice had been spared the intense religious upbringing and biblical dogmaticism suffered by many other children. To her, the ‘Devil’ of the Abrahamic faiths was a naughty mythical creature similar to Krampas, a dark Christmas spirit who punished the greedy and rewarded the kind. She saw Lucifer as a taller, better-looking version of Krampus, a flesh-and-blood spirit who could be manipulated into dispensing chocolate cake, desirable toys and cash by an enterprising child with grubby hands. And Lucifer didn’t feel it necessary to tell her mother absolutely _everything_ Trixie mentioned in casual conversation.

The way she saw it, they were pals.

So her mother’s shock at his true identity seemed a little… well, _disingenuous_ to Trixie. Couldn’t she see what was right in front of her eyes? She was a _detective_ , for Dad's sake! Trixie once again vowed never to forget what it was like to be a kid, to remember everything when she got taller and went silly about boys and grew breasts… although, she was sure she remembered making the same promise years ago and now she could hardly think what it felt like to be five.

But when she was littler she couldn’t drive the ‘Vette at all, couldn’t even reach the pedals, so being 11 wasn’t all that bad. And now, she was determined to convince Lucifer to take her flying! The trick was not to let her mom know she wanted to fly; if Trixie could get Chloe to go up with Lucifer _first_ …

Which was why Lucifer Morningstar found himself standing on the edge of a cliff in some Dadforsaken corner of the Angeles National Forest, wings spread, ready to take his first sky excursion since being thrown out of the Silver City. And he was scared shitless.

It had been literally eons since Lucifer last flew. There was no room for flight in Hell, and the ash clogged the spines on his feathers. The last time he flew it has been as Sa… no. He was _Lucifer_. He would fly as Lucifer and never think about the angel who once soared with brothers and sisters, carelessly flinging himself off peak and precipice… Lucifer’s red-soled shoe slipped on the loose gravel at the cliff edge and he struggled for balance.

Oh, this would never do. He was an _angel_! Flying was as natural as breathing! Humans had their bicycles they never forgot how to ride, and angels never forgot how to fly. It was instinctive, so why was he instinctively holding back? Where was the joy he remembered in spreading his wings and becoming one with the air? The Devil took a deep breath, huffed it out, bent his knees…

     _...do not think...do not think… just DO!_

...and pushed off. Somewhere, he heard the distant cry of a California condor, and his heart lifted in glory. He remembered the flight scene in Avatar, when Jake and the Na’vi rode their winged dragons off the cliff, and that scream they gave out…

Lucifer fully extended his wings and felt the air lift him faster than the elevator at Lux. JOY! He caught a warm updraft along the cliff face and gained a hundred feet in a heartbeat. Yes. This. This was what he’d lost, and if it meant he had to thank Dad, then so be it. Lucifer Morningstar was fly…

**!!! THUHWHOMP !!!**

The collision knocked the air out of Lucifer’s lungs, and his skyward soar became a spiral toward the ground, with gravity calling all the shots.

_...the condor! ohnoohno i hit that poor bird…_

But...what? Uh… Without conscious thought, Lucifer spread his wings and clutched something alive in his arms. Condor...talons…

No. Not a bird.

California condors don’t yell “fuck!!”

And they don’t have wings made of bright red ballistic nylon.

Lucifer had hit a wingsuit flyer. Rather, the flyer had hit _him_.

He tightened his grip, braced his back, spread his wings and braked _braked_ **_BRAKED_ ** for all he was worth. That was when he realized he was holding the wingsuiter upside down, with his (her?) trim young ass squarely in Lucifer’s face. Oh, my. Well, when opportunity comes knocking…

The ground answers. The Devil and the wingsuit pilot tumbled head over heels-asses-wings into the manzanita, scrub brush inserting itself where scrub brush was never meant to go.

“SHIT!!” the condor yelled as he untangled himself from an inconveniently placed cactus. “What…?” He looked around, eyes not fully tracking together. “You have real wings??”

Oh, dear. Lucifer would rather not go through what was sure to be a complex explanation right now, when he’d much prefer being back in the sky and working on Immelmanns and death dives and…

“You… had _wings_. _Real_ ones. Where are they?”

Lucifer sighed. The young man was not going to let this go.

“I did? Where?”

“On your _back_ , dude! You had wings… well, they’d have to be on your back.

“Turn around.”

He rotated his finger, Lucifer turned, and held out his hand. “Lucifer Morningstar, owner of Lux… in downtown LA, I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, sorry. Um…”

_...is he trying to remember his name? did he hit his head? should I call for a rescue party?_

“Dennis. Haight. Dennis Haight. Sorry, I didn’t expect to survive that.”

Lucifer stared into Dennis’ grey eyes and held up one finger. “How many fingers, Dennis?”

“Huh?”

The devil sighed a deep, very put-upon sigh. “How. Many. Fingers. Dennis? I’m trying to determine if you received a head injury in our collision.”

“Oh. Sorry, dude. Thought you were messin’ with me.”

Lucifer drew himself up to his entire 6’3” frame and stared haughtily at the wingsuiter, his eyes showing just a bit of a twinkle. “I do _not_ ‘mess’ with people who knock me flat when I’m out for a pleasant constitutional whilst communing with nature.” And damned if he didn’t sound just like snooty Brit royalty speaking to a colonial!

“But… I was in the air when I hit you! I saw those wings; you were _flying_ , man!” The accusation might have been more effective if Dennis Haight hadn’t suddenly lost his balance and stumbled squarely into the same cactus he’d encountered earlier.

”Ouch!! Oh, shit!” He gave a couple of clumsy hops, compelling Lucifer to help him stumble to bare ground where the two commenced picking spines out of the wingsuit and Dennis’ body.

“Wings? You’re _sure_?” Lucifer asked, tugging at a particularly stubborn piece of vegetation. “What color?”

“Huh? Oh. Uh… _OW! White!_ They were white. And big.”

Lucifer craned his neck around to stare over his shoulder. “Where are they?”

Dennis Haight thought about it. Thought about it some more. He obviously knew enough about the physics of aviation to understand that functioning wings weren’t attachable to the human body by a harness. And no known motor or combustion engine could power what he was sure he’d seen. Therefore…

Lucifer took pity on the young man. “I heard a California condor earlier. I’m sure there’s more than one in the area. It’s entirely possible you collided with an unusually distracted _Gymnogyps californianus_ and sustained a minor concussion in the process.”

He indicated a pile of white fabric tangled in a nearby shrub. “You were sufficiently prescient to trigger your parachute. It appears as if you collided with me as you were landing.”

Certainly possible, if not completely accurate.

The young man rubbed his face and pulled his helmet off. “Yeah, I guess so. Hit a condor, huh? That’s kind of cool… hope the poor guy is okay.”

Lucifer patted his shoulder. “I’m sure the bird is as rattled as you are. I’m parked nearby; would you like a ride to your vehicle? I have a fine scotch waiting in the car.”

“Got a beer?”

Oh, for Dad’s sake. _Beer_? Lucifer side-eyed Dennis. “Scotch.”

The flyer grinned. “Scotch it is. Hey, you interested in learning to skydive? Nothin’ like it!”

*****

By the time the Devil dropped Dennis Haight back at his friends’ truck he’d been thoroughly educated on the intricacies of wingsuit technology and the orgasmic joy of tearing through the air at nearly 200 miles per hour in $2,500 worth of the latest in human ingenuity. “Wingsuits set us _free_ , man!” Dennis insisted. “We were _meant_ to fly.”

Lucifer delighted in the enthusiasm. He recognized the lilt in the flyer’s voice, the ebullient glee of fulfilling a lifelong dream and discovering the reality was far better than anything imagined.

“Jumpers expect to die if anything goes wrong. The fact that I’m alive and talking to you instead of a puddle of blood and torn tissue baffles me.” He turned in the seat and grabbed Lucifer’s shoulders. “Dude, I should be dead and in hell by now!!”

_...i know you. i was you. never lose this joie de vivre, my dennis, my ballistic angel_

“Hell is probably not something you need to be overly concerned with. You are alive and healthy, so in thanks, young man, I direct you to...”

Dennis nodded eagerly, and Lucifer knew he could have asked him to forfeit his soul in that moment. “...teach another person who loves the sky as you do to fly safely. Pass on what you know. Share the joy.”

“That’s _all_?”

Lucifer smirked. “Well, if you want more I suppose we could arrange something...” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Dennis laughed.

“Got a girlfriend. She’s almost more than I can handle, but yeah, I’ll do what you said.” He tightened his grip on the Devil; gray eyes stared deeply into brown ones.

“Things happen for a reason, Lucifer.”

In a heartbeat, the Devil was looking at the face of Father Frank, seeing him glow with pleasure as they rocked the Steinway. Frank. His first friend.

Lucifer touched the flyer’s face. “Keep flying. And… never forget what you’re feeling right now – it means you’re doing what you should be doing.”

He nodded toward the waiting ground crew. “Next time you’re in town, drop by Lux. Drinks are on me!”

As Dennis and his fellow flyers headed home, the young man noticed something irritating his neck just beneath the wingsuit collar. A moment's digging produced a single small white feather. He’d never seen one glow in quite that way, especially a feather that came off a carrion-eating vulture like the California condor, but who knew? Maybe it had chicks back at the nest? A babyfeather, perhaps?

Whatever. His girlfriend would love this story! Her mother was angel-crazy, believed wholeheartedly in the things, was sure angels came along and “saved people from terrible fates, only we never recognized them for what they were”.

Hilarious! In time, it would become the young couple’s favorite tale: A guy named _Lucifer Morningstar_ – because, what else? – who owned a nightclub drove Dennis back to his car after Dennis knocked him flat after he was hit while on a wingsuit flight by a stinky condor who was an angel in disguise. Lucifer’s scotch made it even better!

Yep. Miracles. They come along every damn day.

But, just the same, the wingsuit enthusiast carefully tucked the glowing white feather into the lining of his helmet. As a _souvenir_ , of course. All wingsuit flyers had to be a little superstitious and maybe more than a little crazy, he decided, popping the tab on a cold beer.

Because everyone with any sense knows there’s no such thing as angels.

                                                                               ****************************************

 

To get an idea of the joy of wingsuit flying (especially proximity flying) and to see what Lucifer and Dennis Haight were seeing (minus the collision) go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7v2jPDhxm4.

And do be cautious – the urge to slip the surly bonds of Earth and dance the sky on laughter-silvered wings is contagious.

To get a look at _Gymnogyps californianus_ go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZsV_abBr5c.

 


End file.
